Game, Set
by Foxtoast
Summary: Love is a game in which one always cheats. - Honore de Balzac. BlairChuck.


Stepping out of the elevator, he spotted her from behind, a mess of brown curls topped with a large red bow. He walked quickly, wanting to face her before she stood and spat something at him, something about his womanizing, about his disregard for her feelings, something entirely true. But she didn't stand, and when Chuck rounded the sofa he found her sitting primly, peeling an orange from the large glass bowl in front of her.

He sucked in a breath, but it caught in his throat and for an unexpected moment he was silent. There were two choices (as there often were) – apologize or deflect. He never chose the former.

"Don't you pay people to do that for you?"

Blair's face twitched but her expression remained disconcertingly benign, ostensibly passive. A perfectly-practiced mask, perfectly balanced to hide the loathing and pain he himself had stoked. She dropped a long, perfect spiral of orange peel on the table in front of her and then split the fruit, sliding a sliver into her mouth.

"Do you want to keep eating the center piece or do you want acknowledge my existence?" Try as he might, he couldn't check his tone, and he bit into the words with unwarranted irritation.

Blair looked up to deliver her most withering glare, then returned to her fruit. "You kept me waiting for more than three hours before I realized what an idiot I'd been for thinking you could _possibly_ ever change. I think you can wait a few minutes to say whatever it is you want to say. I can tell you now it won't make any difference, though."

She shrugged, just enough for him to notice, and a faint smirk flickered across her face. Fleeting, it was gone before he could decide if he'd actually seen it.

Chuck's heart skipped a beat, and faltered; it had been hard enough convincing himself of his own nonchalance alone this morning, as he plotted out the exchange in his mind. Now, facing her, the carefully-tended resolve had begun to melt and betray its shaky foundation, swallowing up the scripted words.

He could fight it, though. His façade, he believed, could still outlast hers. It often did. But watching her, like this, uncertain if she were aiming for the upper hand, or aiming to break his heart – or both – he couldn't take much more of this. He had to restate the parameters, shift the conflict to the arena in which he was most comfortable, most in control, most dispassionate and cruel.

With one sweeping movement, he caught her wrist and pulled forward, lurching her off the sofa. The surprise of it squeezed a sharp gasp from the girl, and she stumbled awkwardly before she found her balance against his chest. She scowled, surrendered the orange to the floor, pushed against his chest with her free arm.

"Look, Blair, we both know how this will end, because there's only one way this _ever_ ends. So why don't we skip the histrionics this time?" He arched an eyebrow, and tilted his face toward her wrist, leaving one feather-light kiss, drinking deeply of the citrus that lingered on her skin. It smelled sun-ripened, of Italy, of broken promises unmitigated by the truth. It was an aroma of simple innocence, and for one brief moment it enveloped his sense and reason; the moment passed as soon as he opened his eyes again to deep defiance staring back at him.

"Not this time, Chuck. I've finally learned. You're not here for me, you're here for you." Blair squared her shoulders as best she could manage, pulling her chin up with unexpected resolve.

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

"Oh?" Blair was coy, almost deadly calm. His heart was racing furiously enough that he was certain she could feel each pulse in the fingers encircling her wrist, but she was placid, immune.

She made a soft, disapproving noise and dragged her eyes lazily down his face before returning his gaze. "I think you do, Chuck."

"I'm afraid you'll have to enlighten me, B," he managed through gritted teeth, unwilling to concede any amount of power no matter how helpless he became.

"I have something you want," she began, then glanced over his shoulder, gathering thoughts. "Something you _need_, rather. Something you can't get from your over-priced whores or drunken one-night stands. Something you _clearly_ can't live without."

Her unwavering gaze was a challenge.

He met it as best he could, but the effort was weak, unconvincing. "And what's that?"

"The specifics, I'm not sure." Blair broke their steady gaze; the almost-imperceptible hitch in his voice had validated her, empowered her. Taking advantage of her position, she leaned further into him, perched on the tips of her toes to bring her lips whisper-distance from the warm skin of his throat. "But I could hazard a guess," she breathed, "that the way this feels…" She paused, savored the mild aroma of aftershave, before pressing a kiss just below his jaw, the soft, sensitive spot that elicited a sharp intake of breath, an involuntary tilt of the head.

"I would guess it has never been matched, and not for want of trying." Blair pulled back enough to read his face. "So you keep coming back – every time you try and fail to find it elsewhere, you can't wait for the real thing again." Her words were thick like honey, slow with the pace of false disinterest.

Chuck sucked in a breath and reevaluated his plan of attack. Sometimes a sacrifice was demanded to win the war.

"You have a way of doing… _certain things_," he conceded. "But what the others sometimes lack in quality they more then compensate for in quantity." His eyes narrowed as he searched for the right barb – something that would sting in its honesty, but not smart enough to drive her away in a fit of anger. "And besides, finding quality _and_ quantity has rarely been a problem for me. You, on the other hand, practically beg me back into your bed before I've even finished with the last nameless girl. I wonder why _that_ is?"

"Do I need to reminded you that _you _came to _me?_" She hissed.

"No more than you need to be reminded that I'm the only man who has ever made you come." It was Chuck's turn now to square his shoulders and pretend he didn't feel his footing giving way as if he were standing on a million shifting grains of sand.

Blair was speechless for a moment. Just long enough, Chuck hoped, for her to miss the flicker of a memory that passed over his face; he could not recall their time together without recalling it all, and all that he had too willingly relinquished.

"I know Nate would never talk about that with you. _He's_ a gentleman," Blair snapped, as if circumventing the truth would make it less true.

"He didn't have to," came the quick reply. "You're much easier to read than you think, and it's obvious that safe men, _nice_ men, _other_ men have never satisfied you." The corner of his lip quirked into a smile. He was suddenly enjoying this again.

Blair tugged on her wrist in response, but his grip tightened. "Let me go, Chuck!"

"Tell me it's not true, and I will."

"What's not true?"

"That you don't need this just as much as I do."

Feigned innocence, a prim denial,died in on her lips as he leveraged his position to pull her forward and kiss her forcefully, spilling lust and want and deep, undeniable need.

Her heart betrayed her brain, as it often had in similar situations, and she kissed him back. His lips were pliant and when the tip of her tongue slid between them she was rewarded with a low moan. She had always been good at that, even if he could claim (and rightfully so) that so was he.

The hand that had pressed against her spine now grazed lower, to the hem of her blouse, where it slid under silk and the sudden warmth of skin on skin made her gasp a little. Chuck Bass took every advantage once the game was in play, and his tongue now found her mouth more yielding and he kissed her as if that one action could melt away every stupid, selfish thing he'd ever done to her.

All it did was remind her of the countless times she had yielded to him and he had left her a little more broken, a little more worthless. But he was right – this had never ended differently, and in lonelier moments she had secretly doubted it ever could.

_Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, and again, and again, and again – well, maybe at that point I'm just asking for it._

But she was done now. She broke the kiss, wrenched her arm from his grasp.

"It isn't true. You need this because your life is so shallow and meaningless that you think this counts as… _something_. But it's not, and the fact that you can't even tell just proves how sad and lonely you are. I get along just fine without you, Chuck Bass."

Before he could respond, she had brushed past him and mounted the stairs. But this could not, would not end here – Chuck did not concede so easily. He would not be made to feel as he had so often made others feel. It was not in his nature.

The moment Blair reached her bedroom door, she realized her error. Chuck's shadow blocked the door before she could shut it, and here, away from the main hallway, away from Dorota busying herself with the dusting, she had no cover.

"Go away, Chuck." She said it only out of habit.

"No."

"I'll call Dorota." It was an empty threat. Probably.

"You're a terrible liar."

She glared. "No worse than you."

That she did not yell was taken as an invitation to pull the door shut behind him.

"Now where were we?"

"_We _weren't anywhere," she replied curtly. "I was clarifying how terribly wrong all your assumptions are."

She really was a terrible liar.

Ignoring her, he leaned in, but was met with the smoothness of her cheek. She could do this, she knew, if she only wouldn't kiss him again. She could be all business, all detachment, she could lie in the face of anything just as long as he did not kiss her. His lips kept her too honest.

Instead, she focused her ministrations on his neck, warm and slow at first, as she worked the buttons of his shirt. He let her, without protestation, chuffing out a breath when her fingers found their lazy way to the waistband of his pants.

With practiced hands, she freed him of his clothes, pushing them far enough down his thighs to grasp him, already erect and throbbing with impatience. With her hips she mimed the metronome of sex, stroking him with the beat. He had not been expecting this, or prepared for this, and his head fell backward as he sighed, somewhere between frustration and pleasure. The feel of her lips and teeth on his neck was too much, the warmth of her hand too seductive to make him stop and demand that which he really yearned for.

In this way there was a brief détente. The tense muscles in his back relaxed against the door; she pressed against him and enjoyed the faint musk that permeated his clothing when he came close to climax. It took only moments, though she was not keeping count. She felt him thrust hungrily, legs tensing, before he uncoiled, spent himself for her, breathing raggedly, clutching fistfuls of her skirt.

She pulled back and smiled slyly. Chuck drew his head forward to regard her; she reminded him of a cat, indifferent and content, perhaps a little mean.

When his hands moved to push the hem of her skirt up and over her thighs, she grabbed his wrists.

"I don't need anything from you, remember?"

He looked back at her, questioning.

"You may be the only man who's ever made me orgasm, but I've never needed a man for that." Her voice was low, deliberate. Blair licked her lips as she removed his hands from her. "I will never need this like you do."

He looked away, realizing he had been forced to concede before he had begun. He stuffed the tails of his shirt back in his pants, not caring that they were spotted with the evidence of his own forfeiture.

"You can see yourself out, I assume?" Her tone precluded negotiation.

Wordlessly, he turned and left her room. He knew that the minute he left, her lips still warm with him, she would indulge herself. Sliding between the sheets she would remember him and surrender herself to that memory. He was sure of it; but he was not there with her to see it.

He also knew he would be back, disheveled and frustrated, hungry and insatiable, still unable to live without her. Punching the elevator button Chuck sighed and smoothed his hair. Next time – it was always next time – he would come with his heart on his sleeve, where she wanted it, awkward and exposed and smarting. She would see how vulnerable he was, like her. He would kiss away the ache in her heart, and she would see how she needed it as much as he did. And then, he was certain, he could win her.


End file.
